The World Poker Tour (WPT) is in Los Angeles for one of the most prestigious stops on the poker calendar all year with the return of Legends of Poker at the Parkwest Bicycle Hotel and Casino. It’s the fifth leg on the 2022 Main Tour for WPT, and the $5,300 Main Event offers a $2.5 million guarantee with three opening flights.
Day 1a kicked off on Saturday at 12 p.m. local time and steadily grew to 136 players over the course of the opening flight. Some of poker’s biggest names were there early, including Shawn Daniels, Mike Liang, John Smith, and Giuseppe Pantaleo, who went on a run to grab the chip lead at the end of the day.
Other players to jump in throughout the day included WPT Deepstacks champion Maria Ho, Andrew Moreno, Katie Lindsay, and high-stakes regular Bill Klein. Phil Hellmuth also took his seat in the later stages of the evening.
The reigning champion is Aaron Van Blarcum, who outlasted 520 players to win $474,390 in 2019. That tournament featured a $2 million guarantee, and the field generated a total prize pool of $2,392,000. The 2022 edition is the return of the Legends of Poker to Parkwest Bicycle Hotel and Casino.
2019 Legends of Poker Final Table Results
| Rank | Player | Country | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Aaron Van Blarcum | United States | $474,390 |
| 2 | Gueorgui Gantchev | United States | $306,265 |
| 3 | Jared Griener | United States | $226,040 |
| 4 | Vahan Sudzhyan | Armenia | $168,630 |
| 5 | Jisup Hwang | United States | $127,165 |
| 6 | Antonios Roungeris | Greece | $96,955 |
Jordison’s Heater Continues
It has quickly turned into Angela Jordison’s year in poker, and she showed no sign of slowing down in the opening flight. After chipping up and sitting among the leaders from the early portion of the day, she finished with just over 200,000 in her bag for Day 2.
Jordison has had several high points in 2022, the highest of which may have been when she took home over $150,000 for her third-place finish in the $1,000 Freezeout at the WSOP. It was her second of five live cashes in the series, and she capped off her Summer with a run to 175th in the Main Event.
Meanwhile, the red-hot run didn’t stop in Vegas, and Jordison has continued to hit the payout window in a big way. She finished fifth at MSPT Iowa and picked up two more final tables at WSOPC North Carolina before she won the $1,100 tournament here at Legends of Poker for a share of the $500,000 guarantee.
WPT Champions in the Field
Among the 136 runners were several former WPT champions that are looking for another spot on the Mike Sexton Cup. Past winners Matthew Wantman, Dylan Wilkerson, Eli Elezra, Season 13 Player of the Year Anthony Zinno, Season 5 Player of the Year JC Tran, and Robert Mizrachi were among the members of the WPT Champions Club to take their shot in the Day 1a flight.
Mizrachi is a newly-minted member of the Champions Club after he beat 1,178 players at this Summer’s WPT Venetian stop to win his first WPT title.
Two More Flights
Day 1b will kick off on Sunday at 12 p.m. local time and Day 1c follows suit on Monday. Both remaining flights will play ten 60-minute levels, and the surviving players from the opening heats will return on Tuesday, August 30 at noon. Day 3 continues on Wednesday until the WPT Final Table is set, and the live-streamed finale will be held on Thursday at 1 p.m.
Be sure to keep it with PokerNews for more coverage throughout the WPT Legends of Poker Main Event at Parkwest Bicycle Hotel and Casino.
2022 WPT Legends of Poker Schedule
| Date | Time (PT) | Session |
|---|---|---|
| Saturday, August 27 | 12 p.m. | Day 1a |
| Sunday, August 28 | 12 p.m. | Day 1b |
| Monday, August 29 | 12 p.m. | Day 1c |
| Tuesday, August 30 | 12 p.m. | Day 2 |
| Wednesday, August 31 | 12 p.m. | Day 3 |
| Thursday, September 1 | 1 p.m. | Day 4 (Final Table) |
- Feature photo courtesy of Joe Giron/WPT
